


walking the world

by litra



Category: For the People (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Character Study, Gen, character fusion, sandman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:03:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litra/pseuds/litra
Summary: The seven endless are walking the world. They've chosen to come to New York and set themselves up in the highest court in the land.





	walking the world

"This is a foolish exercise," destiny said. 

When she had first read of the upcoming threat, a magical surge powerful enough to rewrite the rules of magic, she had known they had to be prepared. Wrapping their power in the protective shell of humanity was the most sensible way of riding out the storm. That said, there was no reason for them to be here in this city. They could have found a secluded spot on some island and continued as they had been until the threat was past.

This excersize in human law was foolish. Did he expect her to change the fate of those she worked to defend or accuse? Human law was so much frailer then the universal laws that she used to speak the world. Did he expect her to be comforted by these spider threads the humans used to try to make sense of things?  
  
Her father, time, the endless ticking clock, Rodger Gunn, looked up at her one eyebrow raised. "Your siblings seem to be enjoying it."  
  
Destiny pursed her lips. She had to admit out of all of her siblings she was the one least likely to wander the human world. She enjoyed the measured twisted paths of her garden, and her daily routine of speaking the world into existence. This little excursion into humanity might have been enjoyable for the others but she found it tedious.  
  
"You know better than most that it has been written, and so it must be, and so it will be. Trust me child, enjoy being Kate while you can." He closed the file on his desk and stood passing it to her. She took it and retreated from the office of Roger Gunn.  
  
He was right of course, she was the one who had read the necessity of it. Dream may have been the one to first see the portends, but dreams saw many things, many futures. It was she who made them real. And so here they were all but human willingly bound until the time was right for them to reclaim their aspects. Destiny, Kate she would have to learn to think of herself as Kate, hoped it wouldn't take too long.  
  
She settled into her office. She had made the space as ordered as she could with the limited tools available. Apparently humans could only see a limited span of colors. She felt more blind now than she did in her true aspect. The file her father, no her boss, had given her contained a simple case. The man was accused of fraud and corporate theft. She knew he was guilty as soon as she read his name. She had read his actions, his destiny, in her true shape before they had departed, and she never forgot a single word she read.

Dream poked his head through her door. Apparently he was called Seth now, she made an effort to fix it in her mind. She knew Destruction was still close by. The others had gone further afield Desire, Despair, and Delirium, joining their mother Night elsewhere in the maze that was New York City. Death had already been wondering when they had made the decision. Destiny knew that she had gotten word of the hidden dangers and gone to ground nearby, but she knew more of the human world than their siblings and so was confident standing apart from the rest. Destiny wondered if she would miss her sibling while she was Kate.  
  
"Hey, you got a minute?"  
  
"That depends, is this a serious question or are you only here to ask me if your client is guilty? Because I have my own job to do, and brother or not I'm not going to help you cheat." She looked up from her case and fixed Seth with a flat look.  
  
For a minute she saw Dream's shadowed gaze from Seth's face. His black eyes glowed with an inner light before fading again to a clear blue. She wasn't human enough yet to shiver, but it was an uncanny sight. He was one of the Endless. He shouldn't be forced to bind himself in such a frail, human shape. No matter that he enjoyed putting on such shapes in his own realm, dreams were never all they appeared to be. He was more than this, they all were.  
  
It was possible she wasn't taking this transition very well.  
  
Seth slumped a little and stuck out his lower lip and a pout, then seemed to realize what he was doing and pulled himself together. As humans they weren't siblings. It had been decided that while their disguises would know each other it would be as coworkers rather than family. Both words were true of course, though limiting in their own way.  
  
"Right, I'll just go talk to my clients." He pointed vaguely towards the elevators or possibly another office, it was away from her so she didn't care at the moment. When he finally wandered away she looked down at her own case file. She knew who was guilty, but the human laws were such complex and twisted little things. She would have to do some reading to see how to prove it.  
  
  
  
Leonard stared into the mirror in the men's restroom, pinning his own gaze in place. He had abandoned his siblings once. He had taken a human shape, and wondered human lands trying to ignore or forget or deny his aspect. That had been long ago by human reckoning, 400 years or more. It seemed a lot had changed in that time.  
  
Back then seeing the fire of his power in the depths of his eyes had been like looking at despair, but he found it was a comfort now. He had rebelled once and found the result wanting. Still, there was a certain amount of pleasure in feeling skin over bone, the strength of his arm, the little freedoms humanity allowed. In this shape his touch was not a curse, not merely an ending.

"Leonard Knox" he said to his reflection. "Mr. Knox. Leonard-- Hey, I'm Leo-- My name's Len-- I'm Lenny-- Nice to meet you, I'm Leonard." He rolled the name around in his mouth. It would do. He checked his clothing next. The suit fit him, but the strip of fabric around his neck was tied in a way he'd have to examine to duplicate. Cuffs, pants, shoes, it hat all changed subtly since he'd last walked the world. Ties and straps had been replaced by buttons and hooks in odd places. It wasn't all that complicated, but fashion was one thing he knew mattered to these people and he wasn't going to mess it up if he could help it.   
  
Satisfied that he had as much of a handle on things as he could get for the moment he stepped back. He smiled at the mirror again, and there was just a tiny hint of power in his gaze. That was alright. He could destroy this, people, cases, the opposition, as long as it was metaphorical.  
  
"What is this?" Destiny (who's name was Kate now) asked that evening when he invited her out of the office. Dream (Seth) was following along, watching everything with an amiable smile on his face as they rode down in the elevator.  
  
"We are going drinking. It's what coworkers do at the end of a long week." He and Destiny hadn't been all that close before. He respected her as their eldest sibling, and a master of her own domain, but Destiny and Destruction weren't encouraged to be friends. He had a chance to change that now.   
  
Kate pursed her lips, "The end of the week most often refers to the end of the work week which for the majority of people in the city, including us, is Friday. It is currently a Wednesday."  
  
"He turned just enough to look at her, "so if I asked you on Friday you'd come? You can head back upstairs if you like."  
  
Dream spread his hands, "Come on, we're only human. Time to live a little." His words would have seemed casual to someone who didn't know who they were. "did you have other plans? If you don't want to go drinking we could see a movie or a play!"

"Well?" Leonard asked. He wasn't too keen on seeing a play with Seth. Dream still seemed too close to the surface, and that kind of setting was just asking for trouble.

"Look, I'm going to go out there. I'm going to talk to people, socialize, network. I'm going to learn everything I can about this century and this city, because chances are the next time I walk these streets it will be to destroy them. You can do as you like."

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Leonard tried out a winning smile on the woman standing there. She smiled back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she stepped aside so they could exit. He stepped forward.

Behind him Seth said, "Come on, it'll be worth it," and fell in on Leonard's left side.

His steps were measured, not hurried. She caught up with them a minute later, falling in on his right as they stepped onto the street.  
  
  
  
New York City.

New York was a city of dreams, it had been since it's creation. Other cities tried, LA and Paris and so on, but nothing could match New York. There were a hundred thousand dreams for every block, for every person, and each one came alive.

Seth stepped onto the street beside Leonard and Kate. He liked his sibling's new shapes. He changed his own shape so often, he'd never understood how they were comfortable sitting in the same shape for centuries. To him it felt like walking around for weeks on end without changing his clothes. He'd have to get used to it now though.

He hadn't put too much time into his own shape. Masculine, Midwestern-modern with a home boy smile and good natured features. He could do a lot with this shape. He could be anyone.

Of course he is... He is anyone he is everyone, but not anymore. Not at the moment. He reminded himself again that for the time being, he's not limitless. He's walking one path, not hundreds. He couldn't go up to the people they were passing on the street, look into their eyes and see what their subconscious was screaming.

Well, he could see a little. They were still the endless even if they had set aside their mantles for the moment. Still it would take getting used to. 

They found a bar, and ordered drinks. Leonard settled back looking around. Kate was looking at the bowl of peanuts as if trying to figure out why it was there.

"You can enjoy yourself you know," he said nudging her shoulder. She looked up at him, a frown pressing her lips together. "When's the last time you took a night off?"

"When's the last time you took a night off?" she turned the question back on him, "no one in the world dreaming, all those sleepers and the dreamlands empty, the gates barred."

She had a point, he didn't take nights off normally and since night was relative depending on where a person was, he didn't take days off either.

"I enjoy my work."

"You think I don't?" she was ignoring the peanuts now in favor of pinning him to the spot with her gaze. 

"What? No, that's not what I meant," Seth sat back in his chair. He didn't really understand why she was so upset about this whole thing. it had been her to sugest it after all.  
  
Their drinks arrived. Leonard smiled winningly at the server. Kate sipped her drink experimentally then scowled at it as she took a longer drink. Seth just shook his head. They'd learn. She would learn. This was going to be a great vacation. 

  
He thought he had it all figured out. He'd actually done research into his first case. He was playing the role well. The prosecutor pushed. The prosecutor got the win. He was even going up against his sister.

He and Desire had had an on and off thing for centuries. They fit well together. It was comfortable, and this excursion into humanity was just the thing to spice things up. Add a little something new to the mix as the humans might say. Add a little something new to the mix as the humans might say. So many dreams involved work place romances, and this one had the added flair of them being adversaries.   
  
They told each other secrets. She confided in him about her client. In return he told her about his next move. It was a dance, A fencer's solute... Until she spoke up in court.  
  
He didn't understand.  
  
She said he'd betrayed her. She said he'd used her. She said this wasn't about them.   
  
Who else would it be about? The humans? They hadn't come here to protect the humans. They'd come to protect themselves, to ride out the storm. Anything else was extra. Sure he hadn't been to fond of Destiny's plan to go to some secluded island and not speak to anyone but that didn't mean he thought her premise was wrong. Allison had sided with her client over him, her brother, her lover, her equal. 

Well clearly she didn't see him as her equal if that was what she was going to do.  
  
They were human now. They were going to stay human for however long it took for everything to blow over. In the past he wouldn't have cared if it took them a ten years or a hundred to find their way back to each other but now he had to live each day, each minute, as one man, this man.   
  
This was who he was now, Seth Oliver... and he had no idea who that was.  
  
  
  
  
Despair liked the name Sandra. The others, Seth especially, had said it was old fashioned, but she thought that was part of the charm. She could be charming now. It was a novelty. She wasn't sure she knew how to be charming, but she was going to learn.  
  
She fights. 

She fights as hard as she knows how to fight, raging against the potential that her own power has heaped over this case; her first case. 

Then the man on the stand looked into her eyes and broke. He was nearly in tears as he said, "Because I quit my job because of him! That's how! Because that ferry he was on was the last ferry I ever worked. I was down there on 9/11, ma'am. On the island. Right next to her. The idea that someone would want to blow her up now? I remember." His voice shook. He was clearly trying to maintain a level of curtasy, but his voice broke over his anger and his pain. His despair.  
She turned, and sat, the cold depths of her power pulsing through her veins. 

Her mother came to her in the hallway of the courthouse.

"you need to learn these rules Sandra. You never, ever ask a question you don't know the answer to."  
"That was a mistake." She wasn't really listening. She wasn't Sandra, not really. She was nothing but Despair. She could feel the despair pouring off her client and when she tried to redirect it she'd only spread it around splashing it over that man and the jury and everyone in the seats behind them.  
  
"The mistake was getting baited into a fight. The mistake was asking any questions at all." Jill reached out grabbing her shoulder. She waited until Despair looked up into her night black eyes. "You can get angry, there's nothing wrong with that. You are human now and humans get angry. This is worth getting angry about. That boy in there, that child is facing something he should've never had to face. So get angry, but do not let it control you. If you do you are playing straight into Destructions hands. Right now he is setting the terms of this fight. You can't let them do that."  
  
"This is war," Sandra said in sudden realization. She had faced destruction across hundreds of battlefields. For bread destruction and despair alike and it was always a fight between them.  
  
"It is. It is war. Which means you have to pick your battles, point your weapon in the right direction, and know your enemy. And right now, your biggest enemy is you.You can't let your power get the better of you, but you can't let his power overwhelm you either. Control Sandra." She waited a beat to make sure Sandra heard, then Jill turned and marched down the stairs.

She slipped up. It was clumsy and unintentionally cruel. The whisper of her power said she would do it again. It said she wasn't worthy, said she shouldn't even try.  
  
She lost the case.  
  
Even with Allison pushing her forward and their mother at her back she still lost the case.  
  
She sat in the courtroom and breathed.  
  
Control the battlefield, control herself. "What did get today?" It was mostly directed at herself, trying to find an upside to this whole mess of a situation.  
  
Jill's voice came from the doorway, "you got beat, and now you've got to get up." It wasn't cruel. It was the same kind of affection their mother had always offered her. Night wasn't gentle, wasn't always full of smiles. Secrets and dangers hid in Night's fold, but for every despair to be found there there was peace as well.  
  
Sandra took a breath and stood up, holding her head straight and looking forward as she left the courtroom.  
  
  
  
  
Allison flopped down on the bed in the room Sandra was borrowing. Of course in truth they were all borrowing; the apartment, and their lives, and their professions. Not from individuals at least but from humanity as a whole. It was all polite fictions and memories that other people didn't actually have. She wasn't really Allison, she was Desire, and that was the real problem wasn't it.  
  
Dream and Desire had a history, but Seth and Allison didn't. Seth so clearly didn't care, not about playing human and certainly not about her client.  
  
Allison knew it wasn't a big case. It wasn't an important case like Sandra's. It didn't set a precedent. And yet when she had looked into that woman's eyes she had seen the desire to stay with her son. The desire to walk out of that courtroom and put it all behind her. The desire to shove a finger in her husband's face and shout at him for everything that he put her through.  
  
Allison wanted to give her that.  
  
Her client was a person not a case number. She had hopes and fears that were unique to only her. And for once Allison was actually in a position rant those hopes to wipe away those fears. Oh she reveled in the wanting. It was still at the lights to wind someone out until they were on the edge and desperate, until their dreams were something that they would fight tooth and nail for. But that was all she normally got to have.  
  
On the other hand, Seth wanted things too. She could give him what he wanted, play the game with him like they had for centuries…  
  
"I'm sorry." Sandra came and curled up on the other side of the bed.  
  
Allison paused, blinked a few times "wait." They were two sides of the same coin so it wasn't unusual for Despair to hand over the reins to Desire, but she knew Sandra was different. Sandra desired to be different.  
  
"That's it? Here just to let me off the hope that easy? No, I don't accept that." Allison sat up in the bed propping herself on one elbow to look down at Sandra. "This is where you say, if it was anybody but Seth, I don't think you'd hesitate, or, I like the nuclear option." Allison said trying to coax her friend, her sister into action.  
  
Sandra just let out a gusty breath.  
  
"What happened in trial today? Something happened in trial today."  
  
"I messed up today, I messed up."  
  
In that moment she decided to be Allison. Allison was who Sandra needed. If she was Desire than the woman beside her would have to be Despair, but if she was Allison and Sandra was just Sandra and could be whatever she needed to be. She leaned over and pulled Sandra into a hug.  
  
The next day in court when the judge asked if they had reached a deal she chose to be Allison again. It was for the woman, but it was also for herself. The desires of others were so so sweet but for once she had a desire of her own. She wanted to be Allison Adams.

 

 

Destiny, Kate, Destiny… Turned the screen around and Jay, Delight, Delirium, Jay… Felt a strange sense of déjà vu. Oh, he had known his client was lying, it was just that his client will such a web of lies that even though he was trying to maintain himself in the part of his power that was Delight, Delirium had slipped forward and neither of those sides knew how to be Jay yet.  
  
Destiny looked at him leveling, her lips pursed. She was taking this seriously of course, she took everything seriously. He had never really gotten along with his eldest sister.He was the youngest of them, the least experienced in his power, and then the accident had come and split his power in two. Twice as much to handle, and twice as much chaos when he screwed it all up.  
  
There was a reason why he had chosen to stick with Desire, and Despair. Although, he got along well enough with Dream as well.  
  
She cleared her throat to get his attention, then spoke. "Tab four of my discovery guide, requestjailhouse recordings. Did you still want to make one of your cool points?"  
  
He leaned back in his chair blinking up at her ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, a better ceiling than they had in the public defender's office.  
  
He was starting to drift again. He shook his head both an answer to her question and to clear it.  
  
"You're putting a lot into this."  
  
Kate caped her marker, set it aside and closed the file in front of her. She turned her screen back around, laced her fingers together and looked at him.

"Every day I see people complaining about things rather than fixing them, just because they don't want to bother to do the work. I know exactly how much effort goes into having a destiny. If we are going to be here – if I am going to be here, in this office, and doing this job, then I plan to do it right.

He didn't mean to go off at her the next time they met. He still didn't have a handle on things, and he knew it. He just started talking there in the foyer without a care as to who might be walking past or even what he was actually saying except that it meant something. Delight, and Delirium are seen as flighty by his siblings but this here, it meant something.  
  
"Did you ever get the benefit of compassion and generosity for mistakes that you made? Did mercy and kindness ever change your path?"  
  
She looked at him with the same level gazes before, "you could be a good lawyer. If you tried. You're just not trying."  
  
It was harsh. It was brutal and cruel and absolutely the truth. Destiny spoke the world into existence, and she said that he could be great. So… He would try. Being Jay Simmons had to be easier than being a cosmic entity, and if he failed, well, he was only human... at least for the moment.  
  


 

 

Death got the message that her siblings were retreating to the mortal realm. She had her own feelers out, and the warning came as more of a confirmation then a surprise. Pandora was walking the land, her monsters threatening. The Phantom Stranger was collecting his coins. The Deadman was talking and the Specter was oddly silent.  
  
She took note, and continued her walk.

She felt it when her siblings were getting settled, random flairs of power without direction or purpose. She had her own business to attend to and so she let them figure it out without an interfering older sister.

It was actually her job that brought her to them, before she could seek them out on her own. It had been a few months and they had all settled in. She no longer felt the random bursts of power. Deliberate use of power of course but no more then any other high level magical human.  
  
Anya rode the elevator up to the Federal Prosecutor's office. She sat in the conference room. There was a spark of recognition when Dream and Destiny walked in, and sat across from her, but they weren't alone, so they all played their part. Dream, his name was Seth now, made his case. Destiny, Kate, didn't agree.

Anya liked Destiny's new shape. Death and Destiny had always been close. She wondered if Kate would let Anya let close.  
  
"Hey,"   
  
Kate turned, a small smile tugging at her lips, "Hey."  
  
"Thank you." Anya waved at the conference room. They could talk later, but for now they were still in public.

Kate blinked twice, reorienting "Oh, it was a good idea." She pressed her lips together, eyes dancing over Anya's form. Taking in all the little details.

"Can I get your number? If anything comes up..." It was interesting to use a human pick up line on her old partner. Anya thought she liked it, especially after Kate said yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Destiny - Kate
> 
> Death - Anya
> 
> Dream - Seth
> 
> Destruction - Leonard
> 
> Desire - Allison
> 
> Despair - Sandra
> 
> Delight / Delirium - Jay
> 
>  
> 
> They are the children of Time and Night


End file.
